The present invention relates generally to archery bows and more specifically to archery bows, such as compound bows, having sighting mechanisms. It is known in the art that compound bows incorporate a counter weight typically known as a stabilizer. The stabilizer's purpose is to evenly distribute the weight, or adjust the center of gravity, of the bow. This allows the archer (operator) to more accurately aim and shoot. FIG. 6 depicts an archery bow having a stabilizer 501.
Sighting mechanisms on archery bows are known in the art and are commonly used on archery bows. The purpose of the sighting mechanism is to allow the operator a reference point against which a target may be aligned. Such a typical arrangement includes a sighting mechanism having three “bow sights.” FIGS. 6 and 7 show a typical arrangement of an archery bow with a sighting mechanism 510, and three bow sights 511, 512, and 513.
Bow sights are used to aid the operator (archer) in aligning (or calibrating) the reference (sighting) line so that the arrow hits the center of the target. The reference line runs from the archer's eye through the sight pin to the target center. By moving the sight pin, the orientation of the bow is changed consistently with respect to this reference line.
A typical arrangement includes three or more bow sights, each of the sights corresponding to a range of distances. i.e. bow sight one is used for the range of zero to fifty yards, two is used for 50 to 100 yards, and so on.
In the past, the bow sights have been adjusted by the archer manually using an iterative process whereby the archer shoots at the target and then adjusts the bow sights to fine tune the bow. This is problematic because subtle changes (i.e. posture, fatigue) in the archers body as successive shots are fired cause alignment errors in the bow sights. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have an apparatus that eliminates the human error inherent to conventional sighting calibration techniques. It is an object of this invention to achieve this.